Pussy Riot Leader Escapes Russia Dressed as Food-Delivery Worker Following Threats from the Kremlin
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Maria Alyokhina, the leader of the Russian activist band Pussy Riot, detailed how she escaped Russia while dressed as a food-delivery worker in a recent interview with The New York Times.
“A lot of magic happened last week,” she said, referring to her journey from Russia to Belarus to Lithuania. “It sounds like a spy novel.”
Alyokhina, who had been arrested six times in a year, decided it was time for her to leave the country after Russian authorities announced that her ongoing house arrest would soon become a 21-day stint in a penal colony.
In order to go unnoticed by Moscow police, who had been surveilling the apartment she was staying in, Alyokhina escaped while dressed as a food courier, leaving her phone behind to avoid getting tracked.
Alyokhina’s friend was waiting for her outside the apartment and drove her to the Belarusian border. From there, Alyokhina crossed from Belarus to Lithuania after being turned away at the border twice.
Alyokhina’s girlfriend and fellow Pussy Riot member Lucy Shtein, who also left Russia dressed as a delivery worker, was waiting for Alyokhina in Lithuania along with several other members of the band.
The couple, along with other Pussy Riot members, has since traveled to Iceland.
“’I was happy that I made it, because it was an unpredictable and big’ kiss-off'” to the Russian authorities, reported the Times, which explained that Alyokhina used a “less polite term.”
Alyokhina later said that while The Kremlin “looks like a big demon,” she was able to escape Russia because the authorities are actually “very disorganized if you look from the inside.”
“I don’t think Russia has a right to exist anymore,” Alyokhina added. “Even before, there were questions about how it is united, by what values it is united, and where it is going. But now I don’t think that is a question anymore.”
Despite the comment, she clarified that she hopes to return to the country one day, yet is unsure how she could, as all activists are either imprisoned or exiled.
